Some forgotten Pennsylvania heroinesShoemaker, Henry W. (Henry Wharton)
History
Some forgotten Pennsylvania heroines
Shoemaker, Henry W. (Henry Wharton)
Pennsylvania -- Biography; Women -- Biography
Sheningey, and after his death became the wife of Hiakatoo, commonly
known as Gardeau, a fighting Indian whose name is not remembered in a
kindly manner by residents of the West Branch Valley. His part in the
tomahawking of the wounded at Fort Freeland, near Milton in 1779, gave
him an unenviable reputation, but as to the merits of the case the
loyal “White Woman of the Genessee” is silent. As the wife of Hiakatoo,
Mary Jemison became the mother of a large family, who inherited a
sort of Kingship or overlordship of the Senecas in Western New York
State. The last “King” Jemison died several years ago near Red House,
on the Allegheny River; in his lifetime he sold patent medicines
in Pittsburgh, and exhibited a unique collection of Indian relics,
including the silver war crowns of Chiefs Cornplanter, Blacksnake,
and Red Jacket. Mary Jemison is principally remembered by her book of
memoirs which she dictated to James E. Seaver, an historian, shortly
before her death, and which gives a vivid picture of Indian warfare
and pioneer conditions during her long life. Her influence on the
Indians was beneficent, and her aim was always to bring the two races
together in friendly intercourse, her feeling being that, of the two,
the Indians were the least savage and warlike. Eastern Pennsylvania can
claim another equally picturesque Indian captive in Regina Hartman,
yet her unmarked last resting place in Tulpehocken Churchyard, near
Stouchsburg, Berks County, is known only to a few, among them Dr.
Walker L. Stephen, of Reading, the best-posted Indian folk-lorist in
Pennsylvania. If Regina Hartman had lived in New England or Europe she
would rank as one of the great historical personages of all time, yet
Pennsylvania claims only a mild acquaintance with her. For the benefit
of those present who have not heard of her strange story, we will
summarize it briefly. During an Indian attack along the Blue Mountains,
in the vicinity of the present Town of Orwigsburg, Regina, then nine
years of age, was carried into captivity by the Indians, and for seven
years was taken from place to place by her captors. At last, after the
final peace of the French and Indian War, in 1763, when Mary Jemison
elected to remain with the Indians, a great army of white prisoners
were turned over to the British Colonial forces, and sent east to
Carlisle Barracks, to be restored to their relatives. Regina Hartman’s
mother journeyed to Carlisle, but out of the long line of sunburned
children who were marched past her could not recognize her long lost
daughter. The unhappy woman, in bitter disappointment after her long
trip, broke down and wept. Her grief attracted the attention of Colonel
Henry Bouquet, the brave deliverer of Fort Duquesne, a Huguenot from
Switzerland, who was in charge of the released captives, and addressing
her in Pennsylvania German, he asked if there was any song that she
used to sing to her missing daughter in the old childhood days. The
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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